Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito star in the new but mediocre movie "Heist." The film opens tonight.

Ah, the middle C. It's a terrible place to be stuck. What Shakespeare called "damned with faint praise" is now called "a lukewarm reception."

There's really nothing else to say about "Heist." It's just OK. It isn't very exciting, but it's not exactly walk-out-of-the-theater boring. It ain't bad, but it ain't very good either.

Gene Hackman plays Joe Moore, a master thief and con artist with a young wife and a loyal crew. Things look pretty good for Joe until a complicated robbery goes bad. The duo pulls off the robbery, but Joe's face has been caught on videotape, and he figures it's a good time to retire.

Bergman, a shady "businessman" played by Danny DeVito, who fronted the robbery, holds on to Joe's cut-of-the-deal and demands that Joe not leave town until he pulls off one more job. Without money to retire, Joe agrees to work one more time. Bergman sends his nephew, Jimmy Silk, along on the job to make sure Joe goes through with the deal.

There are plenty of twists and turns - the audience never knows if Joe's wife, who is no amateur herself, is playing Jimmy or double-crossing her husband. And more importantly, no one knows where the gold from the robbery is.

But the back and forth, while exciting for a little while, eventually goes flat. It's like a horror movie where the same killer keeps on popping out of the same staircase; after a while, there's no surprise.

It's a shame this flick is so mundane, because director David Mamet is both an Oscar nominee and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He was the writer behind "Wag the Dog" and the playwright behind "Glengarry Glen Ross," for which he won the Pulitzer. He also directed and wrote the acclaimed independent film "The Spanish Prisoner." Mamet seems at home doing more intelligent, independent films than "Heist." The cast is good, the director's good but something just isn't working.

What does work are the film's robbery scenes. Mamet does a good job of showing the delicacy involved in high-stakes robbery. There are no good guys in "Heist," but viewers find themselves hoping Hackman and his crew will pull off the job, if only to see how they manage to do it.

Those easily confused with slick thief-talk may also need to get out their dictionaries for "Heist." Words like "fence," "utility man" and "lame" lend the movie some street creed, but it sometimes comes off like old people trying to sound hip.

And speaking of old people, DeVito spits and swarms his way through his role. He's a master at playing slim balls, and his role in "Heist" is no departure for him - but he's still lots of fun to watch. Hackman achieves his character equally well; he comes off as the smooth gentlemanly thief frequently portrayed by actors like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. Ladies in your mid-40s and up, beware.

Hackman, in fact, looks downright virile next to Jimmy Silk, played by Sam Rockwell. Equally unappealing is Hackman's wife, played by Rebecca Pidgeon. Rockwell and Pidgeon look confused by the slang they've been given as lines, and their one scene of sexy passion is embarrassingly awkward.

For anyone not female and without a senior discount, consider your money fairly well spent on "Heist." It may be just average, but that means there's a 50 percent chance of seeing something worse.